Equilibrium tells the story of John Preston, A grammaton cleric. These clerics are there to hunt down anyone who may have stopped taking their Prozium. A drug that prevents people from feeling. Anything that may cause someone to have an emotional reaction is illegal and destroyed immediately. As is any of the citizens of this post dystopian world. If any of the citizens are found to have stopped taking Prozium then they are incinerated. After executing his partner (Sean Bean) Preston (Christian Bale) accidentally drops one of his vile’s of Prozium and begins to feel. So he kind of stops taking his Prozium. During this time he arrests a women, Mary O’Brian (Emily Watson) and she brings out the emotion in him. Through her he contacts the resistance and agrees to kill Father. Father (Sean Pertwee) is the dictator who rules and although he is never seen in public video of him is played everywhere reminding people of what happens when banned items are found.

There are a lot of little twists throughout the film. Things get turned on their head and back again, Preston goes through hell as he discovers emotions and what they mean. Aside from a feel that this is influenced by Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and no doubt other works that I have not read or watched.

The action scenes are STUNNING! When I first saw it someone said to me it was like The Matrix, but better. Now I don’t think that it is better than The Matrix, but I don’t think that The Matrix is better than Equilibrium either. Both films have their own story and both films get that message out. They are different films, but The Matrix had a much bigger budget and you can tell, but with Equilibrium it has a much more raw feel to it. The actors give some really strong performances and I could feel Preston’s pain through Christian Bale’s performance.

It is a beautifully shot film with a strong plot and an impressive cast who impress in the film. Equilibrium is absolutely worth a watch.

Ray Bradbury is a name that I have known of for a while and he is one of the writers that I have been wanting to read for that time but me being me it’s taken a while for me to actually hunt one of his books down, but I am glad it was this one. Bradbury built up the pressure on the main character Guy Montag slowly, carefully and precisely. Basically the story is of a fireman, who in this time and place are people who burn books and houses that hide the books that are now banned. People who are more free-spirited are not encouraged in this world. Everyone seems to live a very empty superficial life. Slowly it is revealed that Montag is reading the books that he is supposed to be burning and he is questioning all that his world has become. We don’t really see much outside of Montag’s world. There is mentions of a war that be on the horizon but we are never told why.

Although I found that I enjoyed this book I did not fall in love with it like I have done with other stories. It is one that I feel that I had to read to advance myself as a writer and to a certain extent a human being. It has raised a lot of questions in my head that randomly pop up and demand attention.

I did notice a few references to this book in the film Equilibrium. A film that I would truly recommend anyone grabbing a copy of and having a look at it.

Bradbury wrote this story many years ago and his words have pretty much been made true. People today forget knowledge and have fake friendships with people that we see on our television screens. We ignore so much and pretend that our lives are full of happiness but as in Bradbury’s world many of us are in a dream world.

Mainly this week I’m aiming to knock out as much of this story as I am able to do. I’m not going for a daily or weekly word count at the moment I’m just going to write, okay that’s a little bit of a lie. I’d like to at least write five hundred words a day. Originally I thought I’d be adding about five thousand words to the last draft but I’m actually rewriting the majority of the text. The core story is still the same but we’ve changed it from a comedic story to a serious one so a lot of build up work for jokes has had to be scrapped (I can hear Owen crying 17 miles away as I write that, he put a lot into those jokes) With that change I’m not sure what the rough length will be. There will be a whole new sequence in the middle of the story as well as an addition to the end of it too. So there’s a lot of work to do in the next couple of weeks.

I got my copy of Scott Sigler’s The MVP today. If you havent at least checked out Mr Sigler here’s a good time to do so @ http://scottsigler.com/

Now that I’ve got this book I really need to finish reading Fahrenheit 451 so I can dive into it. J.J. Harkin’s Angels Of the Apocalypse will have to wait till I’ve read this one, Sorry J.J.

While I’m here I’d just like to point people to my Facebook page where you can ‘Like’ me(Not many of my actual friends have liked me yet 😥 lol ) and there is also a link to my Twitter account. Both are to the right of your screen >>>>>>>>>>>>

This week I have a very simple goal of hitting a small target that I have set to be done by the end of the month. I’m at the stage in Project Delphi where I’m doubting whether it’s going to be any good. I’m a little worried that the story is not going to be strong enough or that the characters will not have any depth to them or that the reader just will not care about them. I am pretty sure that this is just a stage in the process of putting the story together, especially as we have made a lot of big changes from the earlier drafts.

I’m still reading through Fahrenheit 451 but I’m getting there with it.

Last week I watched all of the Star Wars films and I’ve come to the conclusion that they really needed a Han Solo character. This week it’s the first four Saw films 😀 And I have some gaming to do. Recently I’ve had the urge to play some Xbox so I’d like to squeeze that in sometime too.

I need to finish the read through of the early draft of Project Delphi by tomorrow night at the latest because I want to get cracking with the re-write on thursday. I also want to get Fahrenheit 451 finished this week too. I have got books stacking up to be read as well as four or five on my Kindle app which now that I have an iPad is easier to use and I really want to get stuck into J.J. Harkin’s Angels Of Apocalypse, Part 1: Alignment because so far it is pretty good and it deserves to have my full reading attention.

In my wind down time after work (writing etc.) and before bed this week I’m going to be watching the Star Wars films in order (from Phantom Menace to Return Of The Jedi)

I have also been interviewed by the fabulous Cinta Garcia on her blog which was posted today, please go and have a little look at the post and have a wander around to see the amazing stuff Cinta has going on. Her first book, The Adventures Of Little Nani is out soon. Here’s the link http://cintascorner.weebly.com/meet-the-author.html

That’s it for now as I NEED to get some pages done tonight so enjoy your evening everyone 🙂

This one is quite simple, to start on the re-write of a story set in the Project Apollo universe. Technically this is the third draft but I’m using the last two drafts as the out lining process. Now though I have to read through and make my notes as I mentioned in previous posts. That will take up most of my creative time and I’m aiming to have this draft done by October, so watch this space.

Aside from that there is not much more that I am looking at achieving. I’m still in the process of putting my room back together after decorating but the worst of it is done now and I need to get back into Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. I’m really enjoying the story but decorating got in the way and I stopped reading for a few days as the book was buried under bucket loads of other items so I’d like to have that wrapped up soon.

The only one of last weeks goals that I did not achieve was the reading one. Once decorating started the book got put under something and I’ve only just found it! This week though I’m aiming for 1500 words and to put my room back together how I want it. I’d like to have Fahrenheit 451 finished too but I’m not holding my breath on that one. I’m fairly confident that I wont be able to get into the writing routine that I want to till at least next Monday but I’ve got that little bit between my teeth now and I’m itching to get going once more. Owen has sent me a copy of the latest thing that he is working on but we still have a story to tidy up yet so I may have to slow him down on this new story, but I don’t really like doing that as I don’t like to interfere when someone is begin creative so I’m going to mention to him that we still have this story hanging in the air and that we need to get it wrapped up.

I recently saw the new Batman film so I’m panning to put a short post about that up in the next few days.

That’s about it for now. I’m off to sleep now as I’ve had a tough day and my eyelids are loosing their battle to stay open.